Microsoft will be laying off as many as 75 percent of its full time employees at its Xbox EMEA business in Reading, according to sources who spoke with MCVUK. Employees will have to reapply for the other 25 percent of jobs. The UK Xbox team will also see 10 of its employees, as well as all of the contractor roles laid off.

"We eliminated a number of EMEA roles in the UK to gain efficiencies," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "We remain very committed to the market and will continue to support our local development teams."

"We believe that the UK has exceptional games industry talent and we’ll continue to focus on game creation in the through Microsoft Studios like Rare, Lionhead Studios, Lift London and Soho Productions," continued the spokesperson. "Also, Europe continues to be an important market for Xbox, and we’re excited to launch Xbox One to fans in 13 mainland European markets in September."

The layoffs are part of a restructuring plan by new CEO Satya Nadella.

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That's pretty shit for those who lost their jobs and for the EU gamers, hope it doesn't slow down localization since obviously we're still gonna need games properly translated into 5 languages for this region.

judging by the numbers, don't blame them. Though it surprises me that they did this and are essentially giving up on Europe yet.... they haven't given up on Japan when they are lucky to even sell as many as 300 Xbox 360s a week there

Hey when it comes to EU over here some MS series to fantastic, consider that Forza 4 sold almost identical numbers in both NA/EU compared to the install base in the 2 regions, heck Forza Horizon even sold more in Europe.